Thrifty Thursday – Researching Places To Buy Meat

My ideal aim is to one day go completely supermarket free, meaning that we will only shop at local stores, stalls and markets instead of using the big chain supermarkets. I have never liked the fact that these huge corporations come into towns and wiped out all of the local trade.

I would much prefer to support local businesses by buying from them, the only problem is that sometimes this means you have to spend more money which is something we don’t want to do. This is where my eco hippy and thrifty personalities clash! I’m looking into ways of making buying local a reality for everyone regardless of their income.

Over the last few weeks I have been looking into sourcing meat. I’ve been focusing mainly on having meat boxes delivered to our home although I am yet to find anywhere that is the same price as our meat would be from Lidl or Aldi.

I know that the meat box meat would generally be better meat and most probably organic so you should expect to pay more but we don’t want to. We’ve worked hard to get our weekly food shop bill down to an average of £40 a week and I have no intention of increasing it again.

I have researched all of the local meat box delivery companies and haven’t found a single one that can match or beat the supermarket prices. Next I shall research buying from a butcher directly to see if they can.

What thrifty things have you been up to this week?

Thrifty Thursday

Thrifty Thursday is a weekly linky and a place to share your thrifty posts. It doesn’t matter if they are old or new and can be about anything to do with saving money and being thrifty. Whether it be a post on cutting back on your food shop or your latest thrifty find link it up, I’d love to see it.

To read more about joining in with Thrifty Thursday please click here.

I managed to get a deal on the radio show here for a meat market. Even with the deal I didn’t feel when I walked out of there with such a small bag of meat that it was reallly a deal.
.
We had a visitor last night that said she and another family went together to buy a cow. Even after processing it stocks up their freezer for a very low price. I was quite impressed to say the least. We might have to look into that.

I have heard of villages that buy meat in bulk and then split it between them. It’s sounds like a good way of doing it, if you get on with your neighbours.Gina recently posted…Teagime – A Custom Blended Teatox & Giveaway

We buy our beef and lamb straight from the farmer. We so have a large freezer. It works out cheaper for us. The farm is opposite our house, so we can walk over with a wheel barrow and pick it up. Cuts the fuel/delivery bill too! We took the sled over one year to pick up the turkey in the snow. Often see the boards up outside farms, around here, advertising meat, etc. Maybe they do something similar around your area. Also nice to see where the meat comes from.

I’m currently trying to persuade the other half that we need one of those big chest freezers in the garage for this very purpose. At the moment we only have a small ish freezer that we can’t really store much in. I do believe a big freezer is the way to.

My dad and his mates at work used to club together and buy a whole cow, sheep or pig from a meat market. The butcher would divided it up and everyone got some. It was cheaper, but you needed a BIG freezer. We buy meat from the butcher. It’s more expensive so we buy less. Meat used to be the flavouring rather than the main event of the meal so we bulk out with veg and potatoes